Woman's Dance Mittens Item Number: E5135-0 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

FROM CARD: "INVENTORIED 1976."Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/248 , retrieved 1-23-2020: Dance Mitts. A pair of woman's dance mittens. The mitts have no separate thumbs. Tassels made of fur strips that are coloured red on one side are sewn to the back of the hand and at the tops of the fingers. The cuffs are decorated with shorn white and dark bands of skin, and with a red coloured wolverine fur trim. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/19: Special clothing is often used today when participating in drum dances. These items that were identified by MacFarlane as dancing mitts show that similar practices were followed in the 1860s.